50 The Ottawa Naturalist. |May 



Stupart has kindly furnished me with a record of the dry April-May 

 periods of the past thirty years. They are as follows : — 



1876 — 2. 15 inches of rain. 



1879 — 2 64 



1896 — 3. 10 



1S98 — 3.21 



1900 — 376 



1903—1.07 



It is certain, therefore, that 'the drouth of 1903, lasting- from 

 8 h April to iith June, during- which only about a fifth of an inch 

 of rain fell at Ottawa, is easily the driest spring on record. It is 

 remarkable how little harm it did, which shows how well fitted 

 our finely watered district is to withstand drouth. As an instance, 

 however, of the fact of compensation, of the fact that things do. 

 tend to average up, it is worth mentioning that, in spite of the 

 long- drouth in the Ottawa Valley last spring, the precipitation 

 here for the year 1903 was only one inch below the average mean 

 of 33.6 inches; and the additional fact that in revenge for the un- 

 usually hot May we had an unusually cool summer. The hottest 

 day last year was the 19th of May, when the thermometer regis- 

 tered 90° in the shade. The average annual maximum tempera- 

 ture of Ottawa is 93-8°. July, which, as is usually the case, was 

 the hottest month, exceeded May m average maximum tempera- 

 ture by only 3.7''. August had a lower maximum than May. 



It is well known that plant growth is dependent upon meteor- 

 ological conditions and particularly upon temperature and rain- 

 fall ; but that the dependence is so absolute, that the parallelism 

 is so true and delicate as even these few observations with all 

 their liabilities to error yet indicate, was to me very interesting- 

 and gratifying: interesting as the spectacle of the orderly reig-n of 

 law must be to everyone who studies it ; and gratifying, as prov- 

 ing that my observations, which I was, to tell the truth, a little 

 fearful of putting- to the test, must have been fairly accurate. 



Such a study tends to clarify one's ideas regarding- many in- 

 teresting phenomena That the plants, instead of all springing 

 up together at the first blush of spring, should range themselves, 

 so to speak, in a procession throughout the season, is partly due 



